Printing devices, such as copiers and printers, are required today to print on a wide range of media. Typically, the types of media that consumers choose to print on range from classic white printer paper of different textures and weights, to semi-transparent paper, such as vellum paper, to overhead transparencies. Each of these types of media absorbs ink differently and requires the printer to adjust in order to maximize print quality.
Prior systems have included contact sensors to identify the presence of media, but these contact sensors can not classify the type of media. As a result, in these systems the operator must enter the type of media so that the printer can adjust the ink parameters.
Other systems, such as the one disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,139,339 to Courtney et al. which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, utilize sensors to discriminate between paper and a transparency traveling in a paper path. Accordingly, this system can distinguish between media with very different characteristics.